A note written inside Long Kesh from one IRA commander to another dates Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness’s departure from the northern command of the organisation to 1995, at a time when he was also Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator, it is claimed.

While it has been publicly stated before, Mr McGuinness, giving evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, admitted his role in the Londonderry unit of the IRA, but stated – and has always insisted – that he left the organisation in 1974.

The blog Vixens with Convictions yesterday published a note it claimed was from Brian Arthurs, named by The Sunday Times in 2005 as an IRA army council member, writing from prison to a senior republican in Tyrone in 1995. The blog claimed that Arthur’s note states that he had just heard McGuinness had just stepped down from his role as IRA northern commander.